These X-Men Kick Ass
We’ve seen a decade’s worth of superhero films with somewhere around five new ones hitting theaters this year. It’s enough for some to have questioned whether or not audiences will grow weary of the genre. As long as movies like Thor and X-Men: First Class keep coming along and freshening things up, the genre will stay alive for many years to come.
First Class takes the X-Men franchise back to the beginning, before Xavier built his school for gifted youngsters and Magneto started his war against Homo sapiens. It’s the early sixties and Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is a party animal, believe it or not, who uses his high I.Q. and psychic abilities to score chicks. Erik Lensherr, later dubbed Magneto (somewhat lamely by Mystique), is on a murderous rampage, tearing through the surviving members of Hitler’s army with the hopes of reaching the man personally responsible for his mother’s death in a concentration camp, Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon). Xavier’s research on mutant genetics catches the attention of Special Agent Moira MacTaggart (Rose Byrne) of the CIA who recruits him to find Sebastian Shaw. The CIA’s interest in Shaw is purely Cold War era intrigue; Shaw is believed to have ties to those nasty Communist Russians.
The three separate storylines come together for one cause (albeit with separate agendas), resulting in the creation of a team of teenage mutant G-Men that must avert a global disaster Shaw is trying to instigate. Meanwhile, character drama abounds as a bond grows between Xavier and Lensherr (Michael Fassbender) and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) relates with Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) over self-image issues.
The latter is partially where First Class really excels. It brings the franchise back to where it first started: when character took precedence over superhero action. Director Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) and producer Bryan Singer (director of X-Men and X2) take the time to humanize much of the principle cast, knowing it is only by doing so that we can really care about the stakes and the action. Interestingly enough, what matters most in First Class isn’t whether or not our heroes live to defeat the bad guy as much as what happens to the relationships within this group during and as a result of their mission. Anybody familiar with the comics or the earlier films knows that eventually Erik’s rage and cynicism will get the best of him someday, making the character – and Xavier’s attempts to tame him – this film’s tragic center (Xavier’s later attempts to tame the equally-tortured Wolverine becomes that much more poignant having now witnessed this).
Where else First Class excels is in the action. This should come as no surprise to anybody who saw last year’s Kick-Ass. Vaughn proved he could film superhero action coherently and brilliantly with both jaw-dropping thrills and emotional weight. That skill has been successfully applied to First Class. We are shown here why the crimson Master of Magnetism is perhaps the greatest villain in comics’ history. His powers are implemented more creatively and with so much more awesomeness than even Singer ever showed us that he steals the movie.
It helps to have someone like Michael Fassbender in the role. While James McAvoy works well as a version of Xavier who matures before us and takes on the responsibility of starting the X-Men as a result of experience rather than some MLK-like pragmatic vision, it is Fassbender – who showed off his bilingual dramatic chops in Inglorious Basterds – that is the real highlight here. Fassbender, as Lensherr, is raw pain and violent rage incarnate. No weapon is any match for him. He can even make teeth fillings cause a man to tremble in fear. He can also make thrusting his palms out and staring really hard compelling rather than silly. More importantly, we understand well who Magneto is and how his deeply jaded view of humanity came to be. Fassbender is the emotional and dramatic center of First Class and soon to be a household name.
Also grounding the film is Jennifer Lawrence as Raven Darkholme (a.k.a. Mystique). As Xavier’s adopted sister (you read that right, fanboys) and a shapeshifter who struggles with her self-image, Lawrence proves she can successfully bring the dramatic chops she exhibited in last year’s Winter’s Bone (see it if you haven’t already!) to a mainstream franchise. This should temper those worrisome Hunger Games fans (Lawrence will play the lead in that franchise next).
The rest of the cast is top-notch: Kevin Bacon as the film’s villain, the energy-absorbing Sebastian Shaw; January Jones as the sexy gemstone telepath Emma Frost; Nicholas Hoult as the brilliant, yet insecure, scientist Hank McCoy; Rose Byrne as X-Men ally MacTaggart; and Zoë Kravitz as Angel Salvadore, who has had plenty of experience with being stared at by others. Vaughn and Singer, who both have ties to previous X-movies (Vaughn almost directed a version of X-Men 3), give each of these actors plenty of material to chew on and moments to shine.
Yet X-Men: First Class is a peculiar film, itself a bit of a mutation. It is the result of two prequel concepts – one focused on Magneto’s back-story, the other about the original X-Men – joined together. But it is being only partially described as a prequel. Vaughn has referred to the film as mostly a reboot. As annoying as that may be to some people who saw X-Men: The Last Stand only five years ago, it makes the most sense, given how much First Class fails as a prequel. The film’s story and characters completely conflict with the characters and continuity of the first three X-Men films (even the heinous The Last Stand featured a scene with Magneto accompanying Xavier to recruit a young Jean Grey).
First Class is a film best thought of as its own vision of the universe. However, even by that perspective it falters since it still attempts to reference the previous series with cameos and by reusing X-Men’s opening Holocaust scene. As well as those things are executed, it is a shame since they allow cracks to appear in what would otherwise be a solid film. Still, First Class has more working for it than most of the other X-Men films (I find it just shy of X2’s excellence).
X-Men: First Class is not perfect. It attempts to have it both ways as a reboot and prequel without completely working as either, which makes its other flaws more noticeable (let’s mention slavery and then cut to the token black guy! Doesn’t everybody seem a bit color blind for living pre-Civil Rights Movement?). As indicated by the details mentioned previously, comic purists should be warned about changes to the source material’s characters, relationships, and continuity. Despite this, Vaughn and Singer have succeeded in the unexpected: making a tired superhero franchise once more exciting and full of promise.
7/10
Should you see it? Buy tickets
X-Men: First Class is now in theaters.